


Came Back Haunted

by RoseFrederick



Category: Dark Angel
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Dubious Consent, Explicit Sexual Content, F/M, Mating Cycles/In Heat, Psychological Horror, Trope Bingo Fill, Unhappy Ending, Unrequited Love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-31
Updated: 2016-10-31
Packaged: 2018-08-28 03:01:36
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,849
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8428909
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RoseFrederick/pseuds/RoseFrederick
Summary: Mistakes are made, and in the aftermath Max finds herself feeling haunted – in one sense or another.





	

Max came awake slowly, a feeling of things being subtly not quite right only growing stronger the more aware she grew. The first oddness to register is that the sheet covering her slips against unusually bare skin when she shifts slightly. The movement brings her awareness to a general sense of feeling strangely loose and relaxed, though the more she moves, the more she becomes aware of odd strains and soreness in particular muscles telling of recent overexertion. There's also an unfamiliar warm weight draped over her middle and pressed up against her back. 

Even with memories of the night before failing to immediately surface, Max can easily put the clues together. She'd hoped, apparently in vain, that Manticore had managed to cure her of going into heat during her last visit in the same way they'd treated her serotonin deficiency. 

She bites her lip in frustration, not sure if she wants to curse or sob. She does know she wants to figure out who the masculine arm wrapped around her waist belongs to before she wakes him up. Max methodically inches her way out from under the weight of his arm, trying to get enough distance so she can turn without rolling onto him and figure out just how bad of a mistake she's made. The one thing she can be sure of is that since the virus is still making her toxic to him, the guy in bed with her isn't Logan, and so far as Max is concerned, it's the only thing that matters. 

Max has to freeze a few times as the body behind her shifts slightly at her distancing movements, and she gets a little incensed when he makes a noise she first thinks is a soft growl. She almost starts getting pissed before she realizes the sound is actually more like a very large cat purring. Which makes her assume her unwelcome companion is probably a transgenic, although she wasn't aware any of them could do that. Eventually, with due care, she can finally roll over and face the music. 

It takes all her willpower not to scream in outrage at the indignity of finding Alec slumbering on his stomach next to her. His face is turned in her direction on the pillow and partially thanks to the soft sunlight filtering in through her curtains highlighting the golden tones in his hair and skin emphasizing the Manticore-built perfection of him, he's looking far more innocent in sleep than the ass has any right to look, ever, let alone right now. As she watches, a tiny furrow appears on his brow accompanied by a slight frown, and the arm she so recently wriggled out from under reaches out, seeking for the lost warmth of her body. Max clenches her teeth in annoyance. Without giving it another thought, she grips the sheet that's the only thing covering either of them, twists around to brace herself against the mattress with her elbows, and plants her feet against his midsection to shove, hard. He goes flying off the bed with enough force to hit the wall with a distinct thud. 

Alec flails awake comically, the expression on his face wide-eyed and bewildered at finding himself suddenly on her bedroom floor. Half his hair is sticking up in every direction and the other is smushed flat while he sits there, blinking at her stupidly. It only pisses Max off that much more how attractive a picture it is. It's not like she doesn't know Alec is hot. She just prefers to ignore that awareness as an inconvenience since personality-wise he's such a complete pain. 

“You asshole! What the hell is wrong with you?” She knows her voice is going to an unpleasant screechy place, but she doesn't care as she hitches the sheet a little tighter against her chest, pulling it completely around her body. Alec doesn't actually seem to be ogling her, but that too just makes her more angry, because he's undoubtedly already seen far too much. 

He runs both hands through his hair, succeeding only in making it even more of a mess, with all of it now standing on end in different directions. After a moment, he finally starts to try and string some kind of coherent response together. “Wait, Max, what -”

Max, however, doesn't want to hear it and cuts across whatever idiotic thing he's going to try and say if the first words out of his mouth aren't going to be the apology she's due. “I was in _heat_ , you stupid jerk!” She reaches behind her to grab one of the pillows and throws it hard at his head, but the too soft thwacking noise it makes as it hits him in the face is incredibly unsatisfying. Unfortunately, everything else in reach that might make more of an impact on his stupid expression is hers and worth more to her than breaking over Alec's head. “How dumb can you be? Did you really think I would _ever_ voluntarily have sex with you? When you have been nothing but a bane to my existence since we met?”

“Guess not.” There's a strange expression on his face for just a second before it's wiped away into blankness. Closing his eyes for a long moment, Alec sighs and reopens them to do a businesslike survey of the room. His attention fixes on the puddle of clothing near the door and he stands up without further delay, looking purposeful. Max looks away as soon as he starts moving and keeps her eyes diverted until she hears the distinctive sound of a zipper's movement. Even if the memories are still thankfully fuzzy at the moment, Max is sure she's already seen far too much naked Alec for one lifetime. After he's also pulled on his t-shirt, he says defensively without looking in her direction, “You're not the only one with feline DNA in the room, you know. This wasn't exactly my -”

“Just get the hell out!” Max pauses, and then adds for good measure when she can just barely control the urge to get up and beat his ass, “I can't believe I ever trusted you even a little bit! Can't you go five minutes at a time without _completely_ screwing up my life?”

He starts to leave, but then turns in the doorway, a determined set to his expression, “Okay. Look, Max,” and that is _enough_.

She grasps the sheet firmly like a shield and blurs over to slap him across the face. She's pretty sure it'll leave a mark, which is all to the good, she thinks, since maybe it'll make an actual impression on the idiot. “Just so we're completely clear? Keeping your head from exploding was the dumbest mistake I ever made. _I hate you._ GET OUT!” Max doesn't wait for any further reaction on his part, shoving him hard out of her way so that he hits the wall across from her bedroom doorway. She stomps the rest of the way to the bathroom for good measure, not looking back. 

Her sensitive hearing picks up what actually sounds like him laughing. _Laughing_. Just before she slams the door shut, she hears him muttering, “Of course. I hate you. Right. Yeah, forget this, I'm out,” but she ignores it, because, duh, why can't he ever buy a clue already? 

Max manages to hold back the tears until she has the water turned on full blast so it will cover the sound if anyone's still in the apartment to hear it. With that safeguard in place, she lets the disgust she feels with herself and her screwed up test tube biology overwhelm her. She stays under the icy spray of water, heaving great ugly sobs that leave her gasping for air for an endless stretch of miserable time, but it's not remotely long enough to get rid of the guilt and self-loathing. It's not fair that thanks to the crazy scientists at Manticore she can't even control her own body. No matter how hard she tries. She's never wished harder she could just be a normal girl with normal girl problems. 

Now she's fully awake, memories from the night before are trying to crowd into her mind, but she ruthlessly shoves them back down. Even if she could separate out her frustration at her lack of control, even if it has been a crazy long time since anyone touched her intimately and sometimes she feels starved for affection and physical connection? She's in love with Logan, so anything with anyone else can be nothing but all bad. Especially considering the Alec of it all. Could she have possibly managed to find someone more awkward to fall into bed with? Ugh. As far as she's concerned, what happened is better left completely forgotten, and she resolves to do her Manticore-trained best to keep it that way.

Max doesn't know how long she stays in the shower, but she's pruning up and slightly shivering from the cold of the water when she finally steps out to get dressed. Coming out of the bathroom toweling at her wet hair, her hope the apartment is empty is immediately thwarted by the sight of Original Cindy stationed at the kitchen island with a bowl of oatmeal. 

Worse, her roommate has a knowing expression on her face and can be assumed to be not entirely unaware of what happened last night. Her opening words only confirm Max's worst suspicion, “Doubting my very own eyes this morning, thinking I saw a certain tomcat slinking his way out -”

Firmly, Max interrupts her, “I don't even want to talk about it.”

“Aiight, suga,” Original Cindy says with her mouth, but her expression remains dubious. 

Max bites out, “It was _heat_ ,” and just barely contains the urge to further justify herself. She really doesn't want to dwell on it even enough for that. Thankfully, even if OC is giving her the eyebrow, her girl is a true friend who keeps the questions and fully deserved mocking to herself. At least for now, but since OC heads off to work almost immediately, Max suspects she hasn't heard the end of her friend's opinion on this latest disaster in the cosmic joke that is her life.

Once her hair has finally dried and she can put it off no longer, Max heads off to work herself, late as per usual. It's not like Normal will ever really get up the nerve to fire her like he always threatens. Almost as if to mock her rotten mood, the Seattle sun is shining brightly overhead and giving off just enough warmth to feel pleasant. Coming up on the building where she works, Max stashes her bike in the alley and ducks in and out of Jam Pony to grab a load of packages as quick as she can manage without stopping to talk to anybody. It's the best thing for it, since right now the last thing she wants to do is come face to face with Alec. If he's stupid enough to taunt her or talk about it or really talk to her at all – or even just breathes too loud in her general vicinity? Max refuses to be responsible for the consequences today. Hopefully even Alec's clueless ass has enough of a sense of self-preservation to let her cool off for a while.

Her plan almost works but for Sketchy's attempt to waylay her and start up a conversation about how she was acting at Crash the night before. Max doesn't know what he's talking about, and like every other detail from last night, she desperately wants to retain her ignorance. Glancing around, she sees a cluster of messengers with their eyes glued to the tv, watching a segment about some idiot trying to dodge a checkpoint and backing up traffic for hours. After a second glance to confirm it's at the outer edge of the city and nowhere she'll be delivering to, she darts to the opposite side of the group from her friend and yells a vague later in his general direction before she makes for the door. She doesn't blur, even if she's a little tempted to. If Sketchy knows who she went home with last night, she's going to kill him. No, actually, she's going to kill both of them. It's the only reasonable solution. 

She pedals off in haste just to make sure Sketchy won't even try to catch her up, and only relaxes into a normal pace once she's a couple of blocks away. It really is a beautiful day outside, and Max resolves to try and let herself enjoy it. Unfortunately, although she managed to get in and out of Jam Pony without running into Alec, it soon becomes clear that he doesn't have to be physically present to be pissing her off. Her intention was to ruthlessly push the memories from last night into the depths of her mind, never to be heard from again. Maybe it's because it has been so long since she allowed herself to let go, or maybe her brain is just perverse. Whatever the reason, as the day wears on, the events of the night before don't seem content to stay safely locked in her subconscious. 

Her first delivery is utterly unremarkable, and she's just finally starting to get over that morning's rude awakening as she delivers her second package to a thirty-something man who answers her knock on his door in a rumpled suit. The apartment building is only a few streets over from Logan's, and she's thinking more about whether or not to swing by his place than she is about the delivery she's making. As Max is absently passing across her clipboard to get a signature for the package, the guy's hand brushes briefly against her own in an accidental touch. Out of nowhere, she's suddenly hit with a sense memory of Alec's warm, slightly bike-calloused hands trailing lightly over the skin of her arms from her collarbone all the way down to envelop her own smaller hands in his. She shivers at the phantom sensation of his thumbs running lightly back and forth over the sensitive skin of her wrists twice before gently moving to match his palms to hers and entwining their fingers. She remembers growling in impatience, triggering her hands being tugged upward and guided to wrap around the cool metal bars of her headboard before – Max's eyes go wide and she snaps back to reality just as suddenly as she left it. She snatches the clipboard out of the guy's hands at a speed well beyond rude and flees his doorstep as if the memory might chase her. Max doesn't even care she doesn't get a tip, irritated and embarrassed with the way the skin of her arms is still tingling with goosebumps halfway to her next delivery. The idea of going to see Logan is completely forgotten.

Later that afternoon as she's trying to sneak in the back door of Jam Pony to grab something from her locker, she nearly collides with two of her coworkers wrapped up so thoroughly in getting their smooch on they don't even notice her. All it takes is a tilt of Marina's head back against the lockers as Max is trying to figure out the best way to edge past, and suddenly it's _her_ sitting upright and naked in _his_ lap, Alec's arms wrapped around her back, holding his muscular body pressed firmly up against her own. She can feel an echo of the hot puff of Alec's breath against her jawline as he paused after nibbling at it to whisper her name softly. She can remember the sensation of one of his arms sliding upwards across her bare back before feeling his hand threading through her hair to tilt her head down enough for him to claim her mouth. At the time, it had felt like the kiss was going to last forever, Alec's mouth moving over hers, tracing her lips with his tongue, nipping lightly at her lips in turn, delving into her mouth and making her feel like he'd swallow her whole. The memory is so vivid Max swears she can almost still taste him. Shaking her head hard to clear it, she slams her fist against the lockers, causing a large dent and making the amorous couple spring apart in surprise as she storms out. She thinks she catches a glimpse of Alec out of the corner of her eye, and as pissed as she is, it just pushes her to leave faster. As fun as kicking his ass again sounds at the moment, Jam Pony is a bad venue for it without even factoring in what might come out of his big mouth. His big, lush, stupid mouth that she's really not going to think about any more.

Finally, after a day that is just too long, even with as few times as she arranges to duck in and out of the building, she's done with work. She's just getting ready to try to relax for the evening back at her apartment when she goes into the kitchen and ends up more pissed than ever when she finds Alec's black sweater slung halfway over the top of the fridge. The memory of yanking it impatiently up his body and tossing it carelessly away is brief and less visceral than the earlier ones, but no less unwelcome. Still, if there's one thing that Max is, it's strong-willed. She's sure she can push the memories aside better tomorrow. She just needs to get a little more distance from the thing, that's all. 

Unfortunately, the universe seems to actively hate her, because the harder she tries to shove the memories down, the more they seem to come from out of nowhere to ambush her. Worse, they seem to get even more vivid. Max curses her transgenic memory more times than she can count over the next several days as the heat encounter continues to haunt – or perhaps the word is taunt – her. 

It's a few hours later and she's attempted to duck into her room to avoid Original Cindy, who has finally returned from a late pickup out in a distant sector, but Max can't stay there. She can smell Alec on her sheets. Closing her eyes and trying to will the awareness away only sends her back to a previous moment laying in bed with her eyes closed. The phantom sensation of Alec's fingers brushing against the shell of her ear as he'd gently guided a strand of hair back behind it sends an unwilling shiver through her. Behind her eyelids, she can see his face after she had opened her eyes to look at him, his expression strangely soft in a way that makes her deeply uncomfortable now. Somehow it's worse than the explicit memories, and before she even registers what she's doing she's running out the door to go spend the night at Crash to avoid remembering anything worse, not even saying a word to OC in her haste to vacate the apartment. It doesn't stop the words, “ _You're so beautiful, even for one of us_ ,” from echoing in her ears, but hell, it's _Alec_. She should be surprised all of her memories so far haven't been full of his stupid lines, right?

She comes to a hard stop at the top of the stairs leading down into the bar, suddenly paranoid she'll run into him at the place they both frequent regularly, a thought which hadn't occurred to her in her hasty need to be somewhere else. Max figures she has lucked out when her sweep of the room is cocky transgenic-free. 

Perhaps she allows her vigilance to relax too much because of it, as it's only a few minutes later when she's getting a pitcher at the bar and someone brushes a hand against her side at the crowded counter top. She'd give them an ass-kicking, or at least a good glare, but another line of goosebumps springs up along her skin in accompaniment to the illusory memory of Alec's hand stroking lazily up and down her side in a repetitive soothing path, before inching ever so slowly inward along between the join between her hip and thigh. The atmosphere of the bar fades for a moment and she can feel the warmth of Alec's naked skin against her back, the cool sheet sliding over the top of both of them, his chin resting against her shoulder, and the wet tip of his erection sliding against the cleft between her buttocks. She can recall with too much clarity how his hips had rocked into her just a little more right as his hand finally reached its destination between her legs. An embarrassing little sound of want she'd barely been aware of releasing had made him chuckle as his fingers started stroking there. The involuntary whimper that escapes her lips in reality suddenly brings her back to the present where the guy next to her gives her a smarmy look. It's all she can do not to punch him in the face as she shifts in discomfort over the sudden wetness between her thighs. When she catches a flash of what she thinks might be Alec over by the pool tables out of the corner of her eye, she's out of there in a flash. She doesn't need this crap. 

She gives herself a few more days to try and move past it, but the first-class brain Manticore gave her is just not interested in helping a sister out with the forgetting thing. Waking up from a half-memory, half-dream of Alec's mouth leaving a wet trail of kisses across her breasts, stomach, and moving all too slowly downward leaves her more than one kind of frustrated and convinces her denial isn't quite working. Figuring she has to try something else to get a handle on this insanity, Max reconsiders avoiding Alec. Problem is, according to Cindy, he hasn't been any more present at Jam Pony since the incident than she has. Apparently he actually felt bad enough to listen for once when Max told him to leave her alone. Still, she thinks she's on the right track. After all, Alec regularly annoys her so thoroughly, faced with the reality of him, the heat memories should shortly be replaced with the reassuringly normal urge to smack him. Even more so if he says anything at all about the two of them. Except she can never quite catch him. When she comes in between runs and thinks she sees a glimpse of him heading behind the lockers, he's long gone by the time she gets there. She'd chew him out for blurring in public, but it's the same story whether it's Jam Pony or Crash, Max never catches more than a flash of leather jacket or vague impression of his face turning away before he's disappeared. Her fellow messengers always swear they haven't seen him, the traitors. 

Aggravated, she finds one of the better spots Normal can't see from his desk and settles in to stay until she manages to finally catch the sneaky jerk. Unfortunately, the only thing skulking around Jam Pony all day nets her is hearing Sketchy moaning when he hurts himself doing some complicated bike trick. Somehow in her brain the noise transmutes itself into Alec's voice, an entirely different moan, breathy and released directly into her ear. It's a much lower, sweeter sound followed by his voice saying, “ _Look at me, Max._ ” The recollection has her clamping her eyes shut, but it doesn't shut out the memory of the softness of the sheets underneath her body, gripped in her fists as she's laid out on her stomach with Alec draped over her back. Each of his arms are braced on either side of her, the sides of her breasts brushing against them each time he moves between her slightly parted thighs with slow, deep thrusts that compact the soft flesh of her ass under the drive of his hips. Each time he moves fully inside, he pauses and his lips trace over her collarbones, neck, or jaw for a long eternity before he slides back out again. The remembered sensation of his slow, deliberated movements inside her has Max sharply inhaling a breath, and for a few seconds it's like she can actually smell their musky scents commingled in her room, shocking her out of the memory. 

Sketchy leading into sex thoughts is just totally whack, and she finds herself grabbing a package from Normal's desk and tearing out into the pouring Seattle rain, resolution to finally confront Alec be damned. As it's almost quitting time, once the package is delivered, she decides to take her motorcycle out for a ride and clear her head. It's something she used to do a lot more often when things were bugging her, back before Alec was one of the things most often bugging her. The plan falls apart when she goes to straddle it. For just a moment her vision flashes, and it's not her motorcycle she's throwing a leg over, it's a naked and sweaty Alec on his back below her. His lower lip caught between his teeth in anticipation, she remembers watching his eyelashes flutter as she stroked the hand wrapped around his erection slowly up and down once before guiding him towards her body. Max recalls how she sank barely down onto him, teasingly moving him against the outer reaches of her sex, until he'd bucked his hips up to urge her on and she'd completely pulled away, sitting back on his legs with a giggle at his inarticulate whimper of protest as his cock bobbed free. “ _Please, please,_ ” echoes in her ears as she feels a hot flush across her skin, still able to feel the phantom sensation of giving in and pressing a hand to his hip to keep him from moving, then sheathing Alec deliciously slowly inside her and watching him struggle not to thrust up again. She'd teasingly rolled her hips just a little, barely moving for the longest time, loving the look of desperation and want on his face. In the moment, under the haze of her heat, she'd felt triumphant to have such power over her constant transgenic pain in the ass. Standing outside her building in the chill from the earlier rain, she just feels disgusted with herself.

Thankfully there's no one around as she lets out a little scream of frustration. It's just too much when even her baby betrays her. It makes her more determined to catch Alec out and find some way to stop this, but it's not until Normal finds her lurking behind the lockers on the second day of her quest and shoves a package into her hands muttering about being short staffed since Alec hasn't shown up for a week that she realizes she's going to have to go further to seek him out. 

She's not worried, not at all. Alec has used up any good will he might have ever had with her. Although after she realizes neither Sketchy nor anyone else at Crash claims to have seen him, she does start to wonder why he's avoiding her so thoroughly. Alec has never taken a hint this well. The last straw is when the whole incident with Joshua getting caught in the sewers with that blind girl, Annie, goes down. Considering how much of a spectacle the whole thing turns into, there's no way Alec didn't hear about it, and she's more than a little pissed he didn't show up to help. Not that she needed his help to get Josh out, but it would have been nice. It turns her mood that much darker she feels guilty about how grateful she was feeling for having something else to concentrate on other than fantasies of Alec while Joshua's friend was being murdered. 

All together it's enough of a motivator to send her looking at his apartment, to kick his ass out of hiding and also make sure he's actually okay and hasn't pulled some stupid stunt and gotten his ass hurt or picked up by White. She's not entirely surprised to find the place deserted and the spot where he normally parks his bike empty. She tries to figure out if the mess in his room of clothes strewn around is an indication he left town or just that he's a lousy housekeeper, but she can't decide. Ultimately, Max spends several hours sitting in the dark of Alec's empty and uncomfortably drafty apartment, but he never shows. 

She's kind of been avoiding Logan – both feeling too guilty over not exactly cheating on their not quite a relationship and mortified at the idea of having one of the stupid flashes of memory she's been experiencing around him – but she calls him and asks if he can track Alec's phone. He pages her back a couple of times, but it's always about wanting her to come over, usually giving her a sullen silence before admitting he hasn't found anything on Alec. Getting off the pay phone in Jam Pony after the latest version of that useless conversation, Max thinks it's just so typical that when she wants to find him, Alec's nowhere to be found. Idiot. She decides to grab her jacket from her locker before going off on her deliveries as she feels a weird draft blow through the building. It's probably going to rain shortly.

Trying to confront Alec is clearly a complete bust, but the memories aren't abating. Especially not after she spent a whole afternoon surrounded by things that smelled like him. So Max decides she needs yet another new plan. Avoidance hadn't worked and confrontation is sadly out, so she thinks maybe she just needs to let the memories out once and maybe it'll abate their power over her or something. It can't get much worse, right? She's sick of zoning out and coming back to herself feeling uncomfortably aroused, sometimes compounded by finding Original Cindy there giving her considering looks she doesn't appreciate at all. 

She makes the time to go up to her thinking spot on the Needle. It's been a while, but she knows she won't be interrupted there. Settled in, Max starts intentionally dredging up her memories of that night in full. She thinks she first realized she was in heat at Crash, sitting at their usual table and itching desperately for some kinda touch. Except thinking back to earlier in the day, she can remember colliding with Alec in the doorway to Jam Pony where he was chatting with Sketchy, paying no attention to how he was blocking the entrance. In retrospect, Max realizes she must have been in the first flush of heat then from how, after yelling at him to move, she'd stared after him entranced by his ass as he walked away. It hadn't struck her as too weird at the time because it's not like she was blind. 

There had been plenty of guys in Crash that night, but her gaze had kept going back over and over again to where Alec was scamming at the pool tables. Maybe it was a transgenic thing, maybe Miss Kitty just figured he was easy. Maybe it was just all the bending over the pool table he kept doing, molding the fabric of his jeans to his ass. Whatever it was, she'd found herself sauntering over and telling him he had to come back to her place to get something. Max can't even remember if she'd been any more specific than that, she'd payed so little attention to the words coming out of her own mouth, desperate to get on with scratching her itch.

He'd been really into his game and complained, cluelessly, about wanting to finish it. He'd barely even looked her way, in fact. When she'd snarled at him, he'd given in like he usually did with a put upon sigh. Following her out of the bar, he'd grumbled the whole way about having found a new mark as bad as Sketchy at pool. He'd insisted on driving his own bike, though she'd wanted him on hers, but she'd been aware enough to realize that might be a bad idea considering how hard it was for her not to just shove him up against the wall in the alley where they were both parked, so she hadn't argued. He'd wandered right on in to her apartment to mess with something on the kitchen counter, completely oblivious, yapping on about something she wasn't even listening to while she closed and surreptitiously locked the door. She'd been fully into the effects of heat by then, her skin feeling itchy and too small, hot all over and wet enough she was surprised Alec hadn't already smelled her.

Maybe it was the sound of the lock clicking into place, maybe it was the change from the crowded space and accompanying distracting smells of Crash and the streets of Seattle, but Max had actually seen the moment it hit him what was going on. His head shot upright and his eyes had gotten huge before he'd started sputtering excuses about taking off. When she started stalking towards him, he'd put up his hands defensively to ward her off, backing away. Her female pride had burned more than a little bit since she'd figured Alec would jump at the chance to jump her, so to speak. It's not like he had standards more stringent than breasts and a pulse so far as she could tell. 

“Hey, now Max, you know this is just the whole cat DNA thing messing with both of us, right? You don't want to do something stupid here. I'm the one that's always doing the stupid thing. Tell you what, you just hang out here and I'll,” he'd paused for a moment before the words came spilling out increasingly fast afterwards, “I'll go give Cindy a call and she can help you do whatever it is you normally do to stay all uptight and repressed like you're supposed to be. C'mon, just listen to your good buddy, friend, heck family - clone of your brother, remember? You'll be back to your normal uptight bitchy self in no time, I'm sure. I swear I'll forget this ever happened!”

Max had been half-tuning out his panicked babble, but calling her bitchy and bringing up Ben had actually pissed her off enough to stop her advance, which was undoubtedly his intention, because a second later he'd tried to blur around her to get to the door. Max, however, has always been faster and trickier than Alec, and she'd had him slammed face first up against the plywood before he could even start to get the lock undone. Of course, it was not a helpful position for what she'd needed at all, so she had yanked on one of his arms and flipped him around to face her, shoving him back against the door, and taking a grip on the other arm as well to keep him in place. He had muttered a low _ow_ when his head slammed into the door for the second time in a row. 

The look he gave her at that point was some mix of apprehension and irritation. At the time, she paid it little mind since she could also hear his increased heartbeat and quickened breathing. There was also the faint smell of his own arousal under the heavier presence of her heat pheromones, telling her he wasn't quite so unaffected as he was trying to get her to believe. He didn't try to fight his way out of her grip, but he'd stood awkwardly against the door, holding himself as far away from her as he could manage. Even if he wasn't physically pushing her off, he had still tried to talk her down again, his face a picture of boyish sincerity. “Max, we both know you really don't want to do this.”

It's rarely not cold all the way up here on the Space Needle in the night hours, and tonight is no exception. In fact, although normally her warmer body temp keeps it bearable, tonight Max can't shake off the chill and has to pull her jacket tighter around her. The thing is, ever since she realized he had probably skipped town, she's been wondering if it was just what she'd said the morning after that made him take off. The more she's remembered, the more she's been sure there had to be more to it. 

She'd leaned into him, pushing her body forward to rub up against him, sliding her breasts up his chest slowly until their bodies were aligned enough for her to grind her hips forward against his. At the time, she'd found him trying to squirm away vaguely amusing, even under her mounting need and frustration with his reticence. 

“I think I really kinda do,” she'd said, pushing her knee between his thighs to keep him in place. When he didn't immediately try to move, she'd released her grip on his arms and used her hands to shove his sweater and the t-shirt he was wearing underneath it up to finally touch his bare skin. 

Max had been too busy enjoying the feel of the warm expanse of his abdomen and the way his muscles there would twitch under her hands in interesting new ways depending on whether she caressed or dug her nails in to think about much else until his hands had come up abruptly to shove hers off. She'd brought her knee up in a sudden harsh movement, just enough to punish him for it. He'd let out a distressed little whimper at the move, but it didn't stop him from starting to yap again to her great impatience. 

“No, I'm really pretty sure. The part where you're constantly telling me to go away so you can pine over Logan is a pretty big clue. You remember Logan, right? Your epic, star-crossed - whatever?” 

She's pretty sure he'd meant to put her off again by deriding her relationship with Logan, but at the time it had the opposite effect. In her mind, whose fault was it that she couldn't be riding it out with Logan? Where she'd so much rather be? His! The thought had been clear as crystal in her otherwise heat-muddled brain, _he owes me this_. 

Regardless of what might have been coming out of his mouth, she'd smugly noted the slight sheen of sweat building on his brow, and with her knee still pressed up against him, even before she'd glanced down she was aware of another obvious sign he wasn't as unaffected as he was trying to pretend pushing against the fly of his jeans. When her gaze was drawn to it, Max had felt as if she'd been suddenly presented in a bolt of clarity with the most obvious solution to getting his cooperation faster. Bracing one hand against the door, she'd moved the other down to start slowly stroking him through the denim material of his pants. He made an odd little squeaking noise when she leaned up to lick over the bobbing of his Adam's apple, but she hadn't thought much of it as she'd made her own noise of dismay as she rubbed her thighs together in impatience. Why was he always so stupidly contrary? 

“You think I don't know what I want?” 

She'd taken a moment to lean back far enough to gauge his reaction, and saw his face was tilted upwards away from her. Max had watched, curiously, still stroking the growing hardness in his pants, seeing that his eyes were scrunched closed and his mouth just slightly open. She had realized after a few moments that he was trying to breathe shallowly to avoid inhaling any more of her pheromones. Her attention was caught by the very light splash of freckles across his nose, which she couldn't ever recall noticing before. They were kind of adorable, and she'd wondered absently if Manticore added them on purpose to make him look more innocent. The distracting consideration of whether or not he had them everywhere else, too, had taken over and she'd spent a few long moments contemplating counting them with her tongue. Of course, by that point Max's impatience had been ramping up since Crash, so she'd decided to save the thought for later and reached out to start unfastening his pants, wanting to feel him without the inconvenient material in the way. She had figured then that she had already been patient enough. 

The renewed action on her part had snapped his attention back from wherever he'd gone mentally. His head had tilted back down and his eyes snapped open as he attempted to push her away again, but she'd just moved into his hands when he wasn't willing to use sufficient force to really shove her away. “No, no, _definitely_ no, Max. You would totally hate me … for this … in the morning. C'mon, we're, uh, sort of, _oh_ , friends ... right? Let's not ... ruin that perfectly dysfunctional relationship.” Thanks to Manticore's enhancements, she can recall what he said now with perfect clarity, though at the time Max hadn't even really been listening, as she'd been more interested in the involuntary noises Alec had made between the babble when she leaned in to nibble at his earlobe. 

The eager twitch his cock gave to almost jump into the palm of her hand when she finally reached into his half-unfastened pants to close around it wasn't exactly a compelling deterrent to her lust-addled brain, either. She can remember how she felt a little thrill of victory at the sound of his hands thumping back loudly against the door after almost coming up to touch her – and she's pretty sure it hadn't been an effort to push her away that time. She was impatient, but she had known that she had just about got him where she wanted him if the way he was almost involuntarily thrusting into her hand was any indication. 

He'd first made another inarticulate noise, before panting out the words, “Okay. Okay, I can't - you have to promise, Max. Promise you won't hate me after. I couldn't deal with that.”

She had. She had known he would finally give in if she did, so she did. As soon as the words had passed her lips, he had lunged across the short space between them and his hands and mouth were suddenly all over her. She'd gotten his sweater pulled up over his head and tossed it carelessly aside, but he was too impatient for them to fully undress, shoving his pants just down far enough to completely free his erection before frantically unfastening hers and pushing them down to pool at her feet. As the cool air of the apartment hit her suddenly exposed and overheated skin, he had nudged her legs apart with the press of a knee between her thighs before stepping through the fabric at her ankles and lifting her legs up around his waist without bothering to remove her pants or boots. A quick twist of his body and her back had been pressed against the door with Alec thrusting hard and fast inside her, making the door rattle wildly with each movement of his hips. Thanks to her stupid transgenic memory, she can almost feel the press of his clothing from where it had rubbed unpleasantly against the sensitive skin of her inner thighs with their desperate movements and the bruising grip he'd had holding her in place. She had lost herself quickly in adjusting her position to help Alec find just the right angle, clinging to him with her nails digging into his back, reveling in the sensation of him filling the aching need she'd been feeling all night. 

As desperate as she was, it had taken hardly any time at all for her to come and he was finishing with jerky, erratic movements only moments later. Afterward, Alec rested his forehead lightly against hers, and they had stayed there for a short eternity, Max suspended between his body and the door, his breaths panting harshly against her own mouth. After a minute or so, he had hitched her legs up for a better grip and walked them back to her bedroom. In short order, they lost the rest of their clothes and present-day Max knows the context for all the other flashes she's been experiencing in a haze of entwined body parts. 

By the time the memory has run its course, Max can almost see her breath from the cold in marked contrast the heated pictures going through her head. Despite that, she spends a few more minutes staring blankly out over the Seattle skyline. With a full replay of the events of that night, the things she said to Alec that morning, which she'd already secretly felt a little bad about when he was nowhere to be found for weeks on end? Yeah, the guy has been a thorn in her side and always acted the dog about women, but he'd tried to do the right thing and she had blamed him entirely for what had been as much her own fault. Still, Max doesn't do apologies. It's not her thing, and she remains slightly annoyed he just took off without saying anything to anybody, even if he was kind of maybe rightfully pissed at her. It's not the first time Alec has disappeared and then come smirking back, though, so maybe if she just waits it out she can figure out some way to make it up to him without actually doing the apology thing. 

Resolution made, Max heads home. Her conscience is a little heavier, but she actually wonders if maybe that wasn't why she was having all these stupid flashbacks. Her brain knew she'd been seriously in the wrong, and hopefully now it can stop punishing her all the time. 

Soon enough, there's the whole mess with her Manticore twin who seems to really kind of hate her. Briefly, while she's packing up and planning on leaving town, Max wonders if she's going to end up running into Alec somewhere. Although she still kind of wishes he'd come back, Max also figures it's just as likely he's settled himself down in greener pastures now that it's been so long. She can just picture him down south on a beach somewhere, leering at girls in bikinis. She's had time and opportunity to notice how much quieter it is without him around, mostly not in a good way, so she can admit he maybe even deserves that. 

Of course, she ends up staying in Seattle after all when it's over. Even if her clone still blows her off with some stinging words about the hell she went through over Max's escape, the whole incident does at least introduce her to the trangenics hiding out in Terminal City. Max ends up working with them quite a bit to try and help with supplies and organization. White keeps menacing transgenics around the city, but she and the others do their best to get everyone to safety. It's a slow day-to-day fight, but at least it's letting her do something to help those she feels guilty for releasing into the big, cold world and she doesn't mind that it helps to distract her from the mess her personal life is. She still can't really look Logan in the eye for any length of time, quite yet.

Somewhere along the line, they rescue a couple of computer specialists that put Logan to shame at hacking, and they have their own go at trying to find White's NSA files, hoping for something incriminating or something that will help them better predict his movements. Or anything useful, really, they're not picky. It's slow going since the last thing they want to do is be detected, but they finally crack his alert system for transgenics and find a list of his underlings they can monitor, which gives them extra time to put together rescue teams when he's trying to run one of their people down.

Tied up in their concerns, she actually goes a whole week without thinking about Alec and assumes with some relief the whole unfortunate mess is finally safely put away in the past. She only even mistakes random strangers for him twice in that span. Unfortunately, her subconscious was just lulling her into a false sense of security. 

Joshua had ended up moving to TC over her objections, and when they finally sort themselves out over it, he gives her a hug in the middle of command. The big guy tugs a little on her hair as he lets her go, and just for a moment, she can hear her name being said softly in Alec's voice accompanying a gentler stroking of her hair. She has to blink away the mental picture of an unfamiliar look in hazel green eyes which matches the tone. It wasn't reverence, it just was a weird little memory, that's all. 

When she almost gets caught out at Jam Pony after putting off lasering her barcode just a little too long, while she and Original Cindy are looking at each other wide-eyed outside in the alley she notices her boo's hands shaking. It brings back a recollection of Alec's doing the same that night, and she'd have maybe thought it was due to his being careless with his tryptophan intake. Except she'd also realized every time he'd reached for her that night after the first had been tentative, as if he was afraid she'd disappear or he'd lose the privilege if he wasn't extra careful with her. The detail hadn't registered at the time, and now she buries the realization it wasn't like him at all, telling herself it's too late to care what that was about even if she wanted to. And she doesn't want to. An odd gust of wind sends a weird chill racing up her spine like icy fingers and she shivers and suggests to OC they hit up Crash a little early to get over the close call. If she thinks she sees someone out of the corner of her eye at the mouth of the alley that looks vaguely like Alec, there's nobody there when she turns her head to look.

Max had decided her subconscious was trying to tell her something before, so this time she tries harder to pay attention instead of avoiding it, hoping that'll get her through it faster. It isn't until she's lying in her bed on the verge of sleep that she finally puts the last details of memory together into a picture she really doesn't like the shape of. Alec's voice echoes in a whisper she'd last heard laying in the same position, barely registering the words, “ _Max, you have no idea how long I've wanted ..._ ” 

At the time, she'd paid him no mind and fallen asleep. Now, she spends the night staring at the ceiling for hours, a sick suspicion churning through her. Each memory she goes back over in her head brings up more and more details she didn't notice. The tone in his voice, the look in his eyes, the very few words he said despite his usual constant yammering, the way he'd immediately responded to any indication she'd made of what she wanted from him once he gave in. Max isn't sure if it's a relief he never actually said that devastating four letter word she's never managed to speak to anyone either when the presence of it suddenly echoes as an undercurrent through every memory she reexamines. Worse, the idea clarifies puzzling things stretching back far further than just that night. 

Even after she'd forced herself to remember, she hadn't really considered the ramifications of the consummate ladies' man trying to talk his way out of sex when he normally chased anything female in his path, but it's more than that. Why had what happened between them finally been the thing that drove him out of town without any sign of return? When it comes down to it, she'd never thought about why Alec had stayed in Seattle with White on the prowl in the first place, or why he'd kept shoving his way into her life no matter how many times she told him to get lost. Nor how he'd been so set on the idea that one bad experience of his own meant Max needed to admit that none of them belonged with ordinaries. It had been a mystery she hadn't cared enough to examine before, but Max is pretty sure she gets it, now.

She tries not to let it bother her. It's not like she _knew_ , right? It was Alec, who always went out of his way to aggravate her to get her attention. Which, okay, yeah, he'd always wanted her attention, but how could she have possibly seen there was any kind of weird, masochistic underlying reason for that? And what the hell, he totally knew she and Logan were meant to be together, so what was he even thinking? Max can't deny feeling a little, okay, a lot guilty for what happened that morning knowing now how extra cruel it probably felt to him. Still, it's ultimately for the best he left town, because she doesn't feel that way about him. He was hot, sure, and the sex had been ... okay, so Marina and Little Suki maybe had reason to be up in arms, but she loves Logan and they're going to get their perfect fairytale ending some day. So it's better Alec has gone off somewhere else to get over it instead of sticking around here to make things awkward for everyone. 

Despite herself, Max's transgenic recollection pulls back the memory of the laughter she'd heard from him that morning, and now she can't understand how she ever mistook it for anything but a deeply unhappy sound. Max didn't love him, but she hadn't ever really hated him, either. He'd gotten to be a pretty good, if often annoying, friend, and the idea that he might hate her now hurts. He'd never seemed that affected by her words before, but he still hasn't come back and that makes her think this time had been different. 

Doing stuff for the growing hideaway of the transgenics takes up a lot of her focus, and Max is glad of that. She doesn't want time to think, can't quite handle having it when every memory she has of Alec is now called into question. Before, thinking he was just being an ass for the pure joy of it, she hadn't thought anything of constantly snapping back. Now, in the context of one of the many things Alec was hiding under that stupid 'always all right' mask of his, she's not sure how much she really knew him at all, nor is she particularly proud of how little she realized it. 

It's several weeks after the techs have had their first go at White's files that they manage to crack deeper into his system. Unfortunately, there's nothing obviously incriminating enough to sway the general public and their growing hatred of all things freakish and barcoded if they leaked it. What they do have is meticulous notes kept for his cover as a government agent about the number of transgenics caught and euthanized since Manticore went down in flames. The sheer volume alone is enough to make anyone sick, but as soon as the word gets out the records are there, transgenics start crowding into headquarters. Just about everyone wants to know if their own unit mates and friends they haven't seen since the fire are on the list. 

Max backs away from the rush quietly. It was her action that put all the transgenics out in the world to be hunted down by White. She wants to believe it wasn't the wrong decision, that freedom and choice for even a little while was better than being caged and used. She's just not sure she can continue to do so when she has to bear witness to transgenic after transgenic making their way through the somber and orderly line with a hopeful face only for most of them to walk away looking crushed or utterly blank. A sick sort of penance makes her unable to leave or completely turn away from the very personal consequences of her actions to people she just wanted to help. 

It crosses her mind to ask about her siblings. White found her clone hiding out in San Francisco. Her family may have been mostly well-scattered and hidden in the world long before the base in Seattle blew – but that didn't apply for Brin and Jace even if it was any kind of protection at all. None of them were truly safe. Ultimately, though, as much as she keenly needs to know, she can't stand the idea of having an audience to her hope or potential grief. She'll quietly have her own look later after the crowd dies down.

So she tries to make herself busy on the other end of the room with planning an upcoming heist, so she's not just wallowing in more guilt. Some of the X5s are enterprising enough to find their own ways to contribute, but a lot of the younger series are less-self motivated, so she's not only planning thefts for herself these days. It's a good way to try and steer the other transgenics more towards stealing from the bad guys, too. She's doing a pretty good job of tuning out what anyone over there is saying, despite the acuity of her transgenic hearing. Some things are not so easily ignored, though, and she feels a hard twist in her guts before she even understands why, the sound of an unfamiliar voice rattling off Alec's barcode digits registering a moment later. Her head whips over in that direction before she can think better of it, and she vaguely remembers having seen the dark haired transgenic standing over the computer console hanging around. His name is Bugs, or Biggs, something like that. She watches his face fall at the same time she registers Luke's, “Sorry, man.”

There's a sensation like an ice cold hand around her throat, strangling down the question she wants to ask, but the other X5 does it for her. “How? When?”

Somehow it doesn't surprise her at all to hear it was just a few hours after she last saw him, handed over to White after getting caught by the sector cops trying to crash through one of the city's outer checkpoints. The sensation around her throat bears down harder and she swears she can actually hear Alec's voice, unnaturally hollow, echoing words from that morning with an entirely different inflection, “ _Of course I hate you_.” 

Max can't breathe.

**Author's Note:**

> With a lot of romance fics where there's epic angst, misunderstandings, and betrayals, sometimes the bare difference between it feeling like bashing and not is that a character gets a chance to make amends before the story ends. I eat up those kinds of stories with a spoon, but at some point a little voice starts whispering in the back of my brain, “but what if it _didn't_ work out?” This is that fic.


End file.
